gearmotor for stirrer

Snagged this gearmotor from a fellow brewer. He doesn't batch sparge anymore so abandoned the stirring project. I'd like to make it work however. My question really involves the need for any other electronics to make this thing spin properly. I've heard that I might need a capacitor and a starting switch. Apparently, the starter can be replaced by a regular switch, but there is the danger that it will blow up in short order. Any truth to that?

From the diagram, it looks like I need a 5mF capacitor, and put it between the red and blue wires. Or does the diagram mean that there is already one inside? Any other specs that need to be in order for the capacitor?

I did do a search on this motor, but only found wortomatic's q and a, with a bunch of q's, but no a's!

Thanks!

StMarcos said:

Snagged this gearmotor from a fellow brewer. He doesn't batch sparge anymore so abandoned the stirring project. I'd like to make it work however. My question really involves the need for any other electronics to make this thing spin properly. I've heard that I might need a capacitor and a starting switch. Apparently, the starter can be replaced by a regular switch, but there is the danger that it will blow up in short order. Any truth to that?

From the diagram, it looks like I need a 5mF capacitor, and put it between the red and blue wires. Or does the diagram mean that there is already one inside? Any other specs that need to be in order for the capacitor?

I did do a search on this motor, but only found wortomatic's q and a, with a bunch of q's, but no a's!

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Any Luck?

It's difficult to say for sure, but from the diagram, the capacitor may be internal, since the squiggle for the AC is outside of where the capacitor is.

If you do decide to hook it up, see how fast it spins. That'll tell you whether there is gearing or not.

Oh, now I see there is an external gear, but what did it hook to? And I don't get why a "starting switch", whatever that is, is necessary for a motor of this size. It's only syncronous motors, AFAIK, that need anything special. Most AC are induction motors, which start automatically.

But what do I know?

The capacitor is external, and no run/start switch is required, just a simple SPST on the hot lead will do the job...

Cheers!

Yeah, what day_tripper said. The cap is external and the other thing inside the circle with the windings is the internal thermal overload protector.

The specs for the cap are on the label. Voltage is minimum rated value; just don't use an electrolytic(polarized) cap as they are designed for DC, not AC.

I bought this motor from herbach.com. It came with a pair of caps, I can get part numbers later if you need. I thought that I read that this motor can be run for stirring without the caps, but it will spin in a random direction.

In the meantime, there is this post from p-j and this post has a wiring diagram also from p-j

Yep, I have the same exact motor. 110V to red and white works with no capacitor and with enough power that it won't stall stirring water / wort / mash. I didn't ground it for testing, but when I install it I will. The spin direction varied, but that might not matter, depending on your blade. The gears came off easily with a small allen wrench.

If you need a cap, I have an extra.